But since your join date says 2011, I think that means that you must be you now.

I was just going to say that I got a little farther into Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," and I now see what he meant about things that we can know a priori (talking in part about mathematics, where it not only is what it is, it has to be what it is, always ).

Whether or not this will lead to proof of God's existence remains to be seen.

Whether or not this will lead to proof of God's existence remains to be seen.

Kant deconstructs - in the old sense of the term, not the Heideggerian twist - the a priori proofs of God in the section called the Transcedental Dialectics. It did that so thoroughly that his friend Moses Mendelsohn called him the 'Alleszermalmer' - the all-destroyer. And metaphysics as a body of true knowledge has been dead ever since - well, Schopenhauer and German idealists in the vein of Hegel thought differently of course but what would philosophy be without such detours.µ

There is of course a Kantian 'proof of God' in the Critique of Practical reason in which he famously comes up with notions such as the postulates of practical reason and 'reasonbelief' ('Vernunftglaube' in German, I don't know how it is translated in English).If we situate Kant within his specific time and political atmosphere, one can understand this reasoning. But to the modern reader, I think it is by far the most problematic part of his philosophy. Oh well, maybe that's just my a priori speaking.

yeahbut, The Transcendental Dialectic's “Ideal of Reason” ... i mean you have your ens realissimum, but one also finds within it Kant's objections to the Ontological, Cosmological and Physico-theological (Design) arguments for God's existence. It is thus the text most central to the negative elements of Kant's philosophy of religion and is integral to the widely held view that Kant is deeply hostile to faith.

The general aim of the Transcendental Dialectic is to expose reason's excesses, its drive to move beyond the limits of possible experience, and to bring all concepts into a systematic unity under an “unconditioned condition.” The Transcendental Dialectic begins with a critique of reason's illusions and errors within the sphere of Rational Psychology. It then moves on to a critique of cosmological metaphysics, and then to the “Ideal of Reason” where Kant turns to Rational Theology and its pursuit of religious knowledge.

As Kant explains, underlying all the traditional proofs for God's existence is the concept of the ens realissimum, the most real being. Reason comes to the idea of this being through the principle that every individuated object is subject to the “principle of complete determination.” While the generality of concepts allow them to be less than fully determined (e.g. our concept of a horse extends over horses that are different colors, heights, etc.), individuated objects must be completely determined (e.g. an individual horse must have specific colors, a specific height, etc.).

Hence, where the particular determinations of actual objects are discovered through experience, our concepts, which in themselves are not objects of experience, necessarily remain partly indeterminate. Nevertheless, reason can construct for itself what is on the one hand still an abstraction but yet also an individuated entity. Kant refers to such entities as “ideals” and in most instances they are used by us regulatively as archetypes for reflection. For example, when considering whether or not to get a pet, one might envision an ideal pet, a pet with the optimal set of desirable attributes. Such an archetype for thought, however, is still not completely determined, for the ideal can still be neutral between various attributes that are not regarded as relevant to one's interests (for example, one may not consider any specific nostril width salient to one's choice of pet).

By contrast, the ens realissimum is the concept of an individual object that is completely determined, and is such through reason alone. In the case of most ideals, their determinations are the result of various empirical concepts as well as various subjective interests (such as what one believes a pet would bring to one's daily life). However, in the ens realissimum, all its determinations are set solely through reason's formal application of the principle of complete determination, aggregating together all possible predicates and selecting from these predicates all those which have a fully positive reality (no negative predicates, no derivative predicates). That is, following the concept of “the most real being,” reason brings together all possible predicates and eliminates those which involve some limitation or deficiency.

In doing this, the faculty does not violate any of the standards Kant sets out within Transcendental Idealism, for reason is merely applying the formal principle of complete determination to all possible predicates and constructing an idea (or more precisely, an ideal) thereby. This construction can then be entertained by the intellect, or perhaps, used as a regulative principle, as one does with other less grand ideals.

Transcendental error comes in, however, if reason also then tenders the ens realissimum as not merely a formal construct but as the metaphysical ground of all that is: since it (in principle) contains all determinations, and these determinations are of actual entities, a “transcendental subreption” may occur that transforms the ens realissimum from just an intellectual construct into a metaphysical reality as the sum total of all actuality.

As with other transcendental errors, we can subreptively conflate a subjective principle, generated by our intellects and of only regulative use, to one that is objective – a real being not constructed in thought, but discovered through thought. Such, we may say, is the source of error in Spinoza's use of substance and in other monistic metaphysics. Our construction of the ens realissimum has the appearance of an actual unity since it is the concept of the sum total of all positive predicates. This appearance then casts an illusion unrecognized by the metaphysicians, leading them into the subreptive error.

According to the Ontological Argument, it is self-evident from the idea of the most real being that that being exists. Whatever it is that is this most real being, it must include all predicates that contribute to its greatness or reality; and given that actual existence is (allegedly) one such predicate, whatever it is that is the most real being is therefore a being who by definition must exist. Hence, if one were to compare two beings, both equally great in all respects except that one exists and one does not, the one that does not exist, by virtue of its non-existence, is lacking a predicate that contributes to the greatness of the other. The correct conception of that than which nothing greater can be conceived must, therefore, include existence.

Kant's famous objection to this argument is that “existence is not a predicate.” This is explained through appeal to the distinction between an actual and non-actual unit of currency, say one hundred dollars. Between the two, there is no difference in the concepts of each: existence adds nothing to the concept of one hundred dollars. So, when one claims that “one hundred dollars exist,” one is not picking out one of its predicates, part of the nature of a hundred dollars, but rather is just “positing” that one has this hundred dollars. Likewise, to claim that “the most real being exists” is merely to posit its existence. It is not a statement about a property essential to this being, for existence, as it is not a predicate or property, cannot be a property of an essence.

Kant's further contends that the Cosmological Argument is parasitic on the Ontological. He demonstrates this by taking Leibniz's Modal Argument as emblematic of all other Cosmological Arguments and then contends that a being posited as necessary in order to explain the contingency of creation has built into it the same error as discussed above. According to Leibniz's Modal Argument, the existence of a contingent reality can only be ultimately explained through a cause whose existence is in itself necessary. However, something whose existence is in itself necessary is something whose existence cannot depend upon anything else but itself, its own nature. This returns us to the Ontological Argument, or at least the objectionable idea at its heart, for the necessary being that the Cosmological Argument proposes is also the idea of a being whose essence involves existence. So, as before, since existence is not a predicate, Kant rejects the coherence of the idea of a being whose existence depends upon nothing but its own nature.

Kant's treatment of the Physico-Theological (Design) Argument is, however, substantially different from the other two classic proofs. While he still contends that it remains ultimately grounded upon the Ontological Argument's assumption that existence is a predicate, this objection does not cut to the argument's core. Surprisingly, Kant expresses considerable sympathy for the Physico-Theological Argument, and claims, for instance, that it “always deserves to be mentioned with respect” (A623/B651). He describes it as “the oldest, the clearest, and the most accordant with the common reason of mankind” (A623/B651). He further regards it as having considerable utility for the Natural Sciences, a point he repeats in both the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic and in the Canon of Pure Reason.

In fact, Kant claims that the argument succeeds in at least establishing “an architect of the world” and a cause “proportioned” to the order of nature. So, up to this point in the argument, he writes, “we have nothing to bring against the rationality and utility of this procedure, but have rather to commend it further” (A624/B652). What Kant cannot accept, however, is its advance from a “Wise Author of Nature” to an infinite creator. When it moves from architect to creator, it proposes an “original” and “supreme” cause, and in so doing, it calls for a being whose existence depends upon nothing but itself. This returns us to the Cosmological/Modal argument, and thus to its dependency on the Ontological.

Andy wrote: ... 'reasonbelief' ('Vernunftglaube' in German, I don't know how it is translated in English). ...

I suspect that the translator of my English-language edition (which dates from 1893) is one of the reasons I'm moving so slow. It's full of words like "cognize" and "intuit," which seem to be used in senses that I do not inuit and which run counter to my cognition. There are also words like "subreptively," which appears in Yakima's post above, and which I neither inuit or cognize.

I'm thinking I might need to assemble a glossary of these words--then the fog might begin to lift.

Kant was a notoriously complex writer, rendering his already quite complex philosophy even less accessible.Even Kant himself acknowledged this problematic character of his writings."The Critique of Pure Reason" is said to be the product of an entire decade dedicated to overthinking its many problems, but the actual writing down of it all only took about 3 months.

When his magnus opus failed to provoke much reaction in the scientific / philosophical community of his time, he decided to render the content of his work a bit more easily accessible and wrote the "Prolegomena". Well, in fact the full title in German was "Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können" ... it's not entirely clear to me why he thought such a title would render his work more popular.That being said: the Prolegomena is a fairly good and readable 'short introduction to' the Critique, so I usually advice people to either read it before they start reading the actual Critique or alongside it.

Translations of course are as much a blessing as they are a curse. I know you speak Russian, so I'm sure that you've experienced the tragedy of translations for yourself.Speaking for myself: over the past decade or so there have been a number of quite beautiful edition of dutch translations of (among others) Kant. When I'm reading Kant I will usually read from these dutch translations but keep a cheaper edition of the actual German text close at hand. (In Germany you have for instance 'Reklam Verlag' which edits very cheap paperback editions of almost any historical German work you can think of. The booklets have a very ugly yellow cover, the print is very small and the size of the booklet itself often not very practical, but I believe you could buy Kants entire corpus for less than € 50,00.)That of course only make sense if you're able to read German. I could do the exact same thing when reading Plato, but as I'm not able to read ancient Greek that would only be preposterous.

I would be a bit surprised if there haven't been any translations of Kants major works in the 20th century. A more recent translation might use a vocabulary more closely in touch with contemporary terminology. A really good edition might even have a glossary with specific terminology.